SodaStream Crystal review
For years now I have written about the health dangers of chemicals in plastics such as BPA. It is clear that plastics are not good for your health.
Here is how it went in my household…
Being a very strong advocate for tea, we had been drinking tea for years (you can read how we prepare tea in a prior blog post that can be read by clicking here). Our preferred brands were Republic of Tea and Teavana and we went through a lot of tea.
I think, in the back of my mind, if I had taken the time to think of it, I would have known that the pesticide levels in tea are among the highest you can find. Coffee and tea, to be specific. The coffee part we already had covered—we only buy organic coffee for the home and office.
But it took a blog post by Vani Hari (aka the Food Babe) to wake me up to the fact that pesticide levels in tea were a grave concern. In a review of certain brands of tea, some 98% of Teavana samples had pesticides detected. I posted this concern on Teavana’s Facebook page and, while they did answer, you could hear the tap dancing in the background as they avoided answering the actual question.
So this led to a shift to only organic teas, which became a problem because the flavors available were not nearly as good. Tazo has a few that are fantastic, but the selection is limited. Luckily, I recently found ESP teas with a very large selection of organic teas (white, black, herbal and rooibos) in great flavors.
Prior to the discovery of ESP, as an alternative, we added in sparkling water. LaCroix, Seagrams, Perrier, Safeway brand. The concept is great. No calories, no artificial sweeteners (although you DO have to be careful not to be tricked into buying the ones with artificial sweeteners) and still provides that exciting fizz.
This is the way it went for the next 2 years or so until the next epiphany.
My son, who is currently 8, was looking for ways to generate some additional revenue besides his salary for feeding the dogs and vacuuming, s0 we discussed saving aluminum cans. This was when I realized just how many cans we were actually going through in any given week.
And started to realize just how high the potential BPA exposure was from this consumption. You see, many cans, both aluminum and steel, are coated with BPA on the inside to create a lining between the food product and the can itself.
In a blog post I did a little while back on BPA exposure from credit card transaction receipts (which can be read by clicking here), one of the participants in the study had to be excluded because his BPA level was over 27 TIMES higher than everyone else’s after drinking 4 cans of beverages.
This is obviously a concern and created quite a conundrum in our family.
Luckily, this problem was solved by the Soda Stream Crystal. I am wary of all plastics, so the typical Soda Stream containers were not a good option. But the Soda Stream Crystal is all glass, alleviating this concern.
So last week we became the proud owners of our new Soda Stream Crystal. And that’s when the fun began. We bought extra glass bottles to hold the sparkling water we made (the Soda Stream glass replacement bottles are quite pricey) and continue to find creative ways to add flavors.
Here’s a few ideas:
- Soda Stream sells My Essence, which are raspberry, orange and lemon-lime flavored essences.
- Organic vanilla extract
- Orange extract can also be purchased separately.
- Coconut extract
- We have yet to add pulverized fruits into the drink, but this can be done quite easily, so long as you limit it to just a small amount of the fruit for flavor only.
I’m sure in time I’ll have some more ideas. Overall, though, it’s been a fun experience, very inexpensive once the initial Soda Stream equipment is bought and most importantly, BPA-free.
Patients ask me all the time how to go about reducing exposure to toxic chemicals in their environment. The first step is identifying these exposures. The next step is doing something about it. Moving to the Soda Stream Crystal in addition to your organic tea consumption is a fantastic step in protecting your long-term health.